1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to job control apparatus and method, and a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been provided a so-called photobook order service in which the user can freely arrange image data in a layout having a plurality of pages on a personal computer to produce a book and order the book. A photobook is often constituted by a plurality of parts such as a body, a cover, a jacket and a strip. In a process of actually producing the photobook, these parts are subjected to different post-processing processes after printing. For this reason, each of the post-processing processes of the parts are generally executed by a different post-processor. Therefore, when an order of the plurality of photobooks is issued, in order to save the effort of assortment in transporting printed matters to the post-processors, if is necessary to perform printing for each batch of the same parts and feed the printed matters to the post-processor as they are, for post-processing.
At this time, the parts in a batch are stacked in a predetermined order designated by a photobook production system, and the order is common to all types of parts. This is performed in order to keep consistency in combining the plural types of parts constituting the identical ordered product and binding a book.
Furthermore, when an error is caused in the working process, the operator needs to carry our, a so-called recovery operation in order to perform printing and post-processing of the parts in the photobook which pass through printing and a plurality of post-processing processes, again.
In the recovery operation, in order to keep consistency in the same order job, the operator has to match the order of the error-caused part and the order of other parts in the batch. Two common methods are considered for order matching.
In accordance with one method, the operation of a subsequent job is temporarily stopped at the time of occurrence of the error, and then the operation is restarted after performing the recovery processing of the target part. In this case, the order initially designated by the photobook production system is maintained.
In accordance with another method, the subsequent job is first completed while leaving the recovery operation for the error-caused part later, and the recovery operation is finally performed. In this case, for example, by moving the error-caused part to the tail end of the batch, the original part order is changed.
In the former case, the process of the error-caused part, and in some cases, the operation of other types of parts are stopped and priority on the recovery operation is placed. Accordingly, from the viewpoint, of overall productivity, the latter method is more preferable. However, in the latter case, the operator's manual operation for keeping consistency in the order between the parts is necessary. Specifically, the order of all of other types of parts is manually changed to the same order of the error-caused part. At this time, the operator has to visually check other types of parts constituting the same order as the error-caused part and move the parts in the same order as the error-caused part (for example, to the tail end).
In a photobook production site, there is a high demand for a method of recovering an error while reducing such operator's workload. Japanese Patent laid-Open No. 2006-309319 discloses an error recovery technique. According to the technique described in Japanese Patent laid-Open No. 2006-309319, when a certain error is caused in a working process, first, it is determined whether or not change in the working process described in a job ticket, (print, setting information, or post-processing setting information) is necessary. When it is determined that change is necessary, according to the technique described in Japanese Patent laid-Open No. 2006-309319, another device that can implement the target, working process is searched, and a new job ticket is generated to cause the device to perform the operation.
However, in Japanese Patent laid-Open No. 2006-30.931.9, the job ticket is updated noting only a single job and therefore, it is hard to say that the technique can be applied, to a photobook production flow of dealing with plural types of parts in parallel. In other words, although the technique can address recovery of the error-caused part itself, it does not give consideration to other parts constituting the same order.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent laid-Open No. 2006-309319 does not note a workflow in the actual photobook production site of executing processing for each batch of the same parts in response to a plurality of orders. That is, the processing of keeping consistency in the job order of a plurality of parts is not disclosed.